Disasters

Well, well, well... look who decided to update her blog. I know you can't wait to hear about my disasters, but let me just review the week, because it was a pleasant one. And really, we all know I can't go out of order.

Monday morning after we ate breakfast, I decided I needed to do something to get my energy level up. I decided to start walking again so off I went. I looked for a trail I'd heard about, but couldn't find it. That night Beka, Danny and the boys came over for dinner. When I have people over and I don't think much about it, things go well. When I worry about making sure it's the best meal ever, it never is. That is kind of how that meal went. I knew Danny was excited so of course, it was one of those "eh, it's okay" meals. Then, trying to impress, I made oreo truffles. They were on a pan in the fridge chilling when Jason went to get something out of the fridge. He grabbed the sour cream and my pan of dessert crashed to the floor. Luckily, none of us seemed to mind and their encounter with the floor didn't seem to diminish their great taste. Afterwards, we visited and laughed. Great family night.

Thursday night was class one of the sewing class I'm taking. This lady in my Ward is teaching it and I'm pretty excited. Fortunately, Jason was able to swing by her house and get Clara before we left for JoAnn's to get our fabric and pattern. I am excited to learn to sew but I found it interesting that after I get all the materials, I'm sure I'll have spent more than I do on an already made skirt. I guess it's all about learning to be self-reliant, right? I found some awesome material and as I was waiting to get it cut, a lady in the class said, "You shouldn't wear that color." A bit surprised I asked if she was into the whole color tones thing, to which she said she wasn't, but she watches What Not To Wear. I just laughed. It's a skirt, so it won't be near my face. Plus, I'd rather have a fabric I like that doesn't go with my face than a fabric I don't like. Bless that sweet woman, obviously she doesn't know that even when I do try to wear good colors, it never works out so I've given up on even trying.

On Friday, Amy took Cherie and me out to lunch at Cafe Rio for Cherie's birthday. I'm never disapointed with their food and good company doesn't get old either. Clara and I then went to my mom's to visit because Suzy was there. Suzanne had her baby on Thursday and things went really well, until Friday at about 1am, baby Ava started spitting up blood. After some tests and a scope of her stomach (to either confirm or reject the possibility of a double stomach) they concluded it was an ulcer. That was great news!! Jason met me at my mom's and took Clara home so I could go to the hospital. I went with Jack, Kristie, Suzy and my mom. Ohhhh my goodness, even all hooked up to her tubes, she was such a beautiful, sweet baby! Jason and I have been talking, okay, I alone have been talking to him about how I just want one kid (well, between one and ten) but that made me want a sweet little baby NOW!

Had time allowed me to blog on Friday, I would have had the following five things that make each specified person happy:

Clara

1. Jason ditching his classes Wednesday morning

2. Going on walks

3. Offloff - she ate more of it than I did!

4. Her sunglasses

5. Empty cupboards

Anna

1. Jason ditching his classes Wednesday morning

2. My velcro rollers (the only thing I've ever found that give my hair sufficient body for my liking)

3. Getting confirmation that when Jason passes the PE in October, he'll be official

4. Jason dunking mini oreos in milk, oh how I laughed.

5. Fireplaces

Jason (that's right, he made the cut this week)

1. Ditching classes Wednesday morning

2. Something I can't say until Tuesday

3. Girl Scout cookies (we bought two boxes... and Jason said, "I can't wait until we have a status change and we can buy three boxes." ha ha

4. Rocking Clara to sleep

5. My computer (he seems to take it with him more and more...)

And then came Saturday, which is basically when my pleasant little week came to an end, both the actual week and the pleasantness. I woke up with way too many things to do, but figured I could get them done with no problem if I stayed focus. Jason got ready for work and went to get Clara before he left and from her room said, "Honey, come here." I thought maybe she'd climbed out of her crib because she had been talking to herself for a few minutes. Jason told me she pooped and it went out her diaper and got all over. Well, the second I stepped into her room before seeing anything, my nose told me she'd thrown up, not pooped. Well, she did that too, but that wasn't what was all over her sheet, her pj's, the crib and in her hair. I decided it was best to give her a bath before I fed her so I wouldn't throw up smelling her. She loved her bath and acted fine so I figured she probably just ate too many crackers at my mom's. I got behind on my list from having to bathe her, rinse out her clothes and bedding and put more bedding on. Let's hear it for disaster one.

While Clara napped, I worked on the name tags for the Blue and Gold Banquet. For those of you that don't know (rare) and care (even more rare), Scouts have a Blue and Gold Banquet every year to celebrate the "birthday" of Scouting. This year's theme was the Chinese New Year. Back to the name tags... 63 people were coming and I made everyone a name tag with their name in Chinese (thanks to http://www.about.com/). I was trying to do it in Word (I know, big mistake) and that is when disaster two happened. I went to print them out and realized originally I set the margins to be able to fold the paper I printed on, so it was miniature. Argh, that meant one thing: I had to copy, paste and re-format ALL 61 name tags. This took an extra two hours or so, again, compliments of Word.

I was relieved Clara took a 2+ hour nap since on Saturdays and Sundays when the neighbors are out screaming, it's usually much shorter. I was not relieved when I went in to get her and smelled the awful smell of vomit. But without it, I wouldn't have had disaster three. Again, my poor little baby threw up all over her clothes, her bed and herself. So into the bath she went, off came the bedding and further behind I did fall on my chores. I called Jason and he agreed to leave work 30 minutes early.

I still had to buy stuff for the dessert, make the dessert, print and mount the name tags, pick up the rice, help set up and get myself ready. So I began making the dessert. Clever idea, but I can't take credit for it. I began attempting giant sugar cookies decorated like a Chinese checkerboard. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my sugar cookies, but Nylene and I agreed store-bought cookie dough mix would be best. It might have been best if I have cooked with it before. I mixed two batches, put them on my stones and put them in the oven. Roughly ten minutes later, disaster four occured. One of the cookies was completely overflowing from the stone, all over the edge, all over the bottom of my oven. The whole house filled with smoke when I opened the oven. I had to clean up the mess and tried to finish baking the cookies. One was raw and the other hard. I put the raw one in for a few more minutes, but it still fell apart when I attempted to slide it onto the cardboard. I put together the puzzle of cookies pieces I will call disaster five.

For the next cookie (I needed four) I thought I'd be smart. I put the cookie dough at least an inch away from the edge of the stone. Ten minutes later, I still had a pretty raw cookie. Five minutes later, disaster six. The others cooked for nearly twenty minutes. This one, 13 and it was not only burnt, but ALL over my oven. More burnt cookie, more stink and more smoke.

I put the fourth one in, leaving a good two inches from the edge of the stone and left Jason in charge. This, ended up being disaster seven. No, it didn't crawl off the edge and make a suicidal jump into the bottom of the oven, but it did get hard as a rock. I just laugh, I make yummy homemade sugar cookies but can't get cookie mix to turn out.

Meanwhile... I went to the Church to help set up. Happily, no disasters to report during the time I was there. Plus, I beggingly asked Edith to go pick up the rice for me. I thought the room turned out great! It was the year of the rat, which is why we have rats as our centerpieces. :) Nylene pretty much came up with all the great ideas. I love serving with her, everyone is always impressed. Ha ha.

Then, I sped off to Target to get gumballs. My indecisiveness and stress wasted more time when I couldn't find gumballs. No one sells gumballs which could be disaster eight. I thought oh, I'll get Gobstoppers. Then I thought, no, there's not enough colors. So I went and got jelly beans. Then I took them and the Gobstoppers to the check out and was going to open a package of Gobstoppers to double check which colors they came in. Nah, there were only five, I was sure, so I bought the jelly beans. Then I went to Albertson's to get frosting and look for gumballs. No such luck so I decided to get Gobstoppers and use Whoppers as the sixth color. Yes, this crossed my mind in Target, but I didn't do anything about it. Oh, but wait, they only had TWO boxes of Gobstoppers. Then I went to Michael's to get paper for the place cards. Then I decided to go back to Target and get the Gobstoppers because the thought of having objects not completely round was stressing me past my stress limit. I rushed home about 10 to five.

Enter Jason. After watching Clara while I did all that, knowing he'd have to get her dinner and take care of her while I went to the banquet he agreed to frost the cookies for me. :) We only did three because two were like cardboard and I was so embarassed, I didn't want to have two disgusting cookies. I went to print the names off and instead, printed off the beginning of disaster nine. It looked awful and I don't know if it was my low toner or the paper. I printed them on Jason's printer and they looked better. I showered in like three minutes and didn't even blow dry my hair. I looked charming, I'm sure. What a frazzled mess I was.

Sadly I didn't have time to do the name tags like I wanted, but oh well, I knew life would go on (PS, it did!). I loaded up the car and off I went, fifteen minutes late. As we were finishing up the last of the details, Edith revealed disaster number ten to me. She went to pick up the rice and they didn't have it. They said I probably called the Gilbert location (I didn't) and they had no record of me calling. Thank goodness the girl was still able to get it for her and was very polite about it. I was glad I wasn't there because I probably would have either started yelling or crying. There's no way I could've handled it.

I decorated the cookies in the kitchen and decided I liked it with just five colors. I figured no one would notice and no one would care! They were pretty cute I must say.

Wewsh. The boys did a Chinese dragon parade and got awards, but I missed that (I was bummed, but it was my own fault) because I was decorating the cookies. Then we played games in the Cultural Hall and had dinner in the Primary Room. We had rice, sweet and sour chicken that Nylene made, egg rolls and strawberries. We had a great turnout (55, I think) and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. I was sad when I realized I wouldn't be making it home before Clara went to bed, which would mean it was the third night in a row that Jason put her to sleep. I just wanted to get her out of bed and hold her, but Jason didn't think it was a good idea. I had seen her for just an hour or so since like 2pm.

Everyone stuck around and totally helped clean up. I told Jason other than the Gospel itself (obviously), one thing that I absolutely love the Church for is people's willingness to help. No one was even asked to do so, they just started taking care of everything. I was so grateful that we didn't have to do it because it would've taken at least twice as long.

Knowing people enjoyed themselves helped me feel like less of a failure. When I have days like today, I really feel like I can't do anything right. Everything I was responsible for went wrong. Even the game I planned for the Scouts was apparently not good. I thought it was okay considering where we were, until one of the moms said oh so sarcastically, "Well, that went well!" with a little chuckle. She's such a sweet lady, so I'm sure she meant nothing from it, but I just thought, man, I can't even do that right! I just think, I can't even do the simple callings, what is wrong with me?

I came home, read my book to relax and went to bed knowing the house was a mess and I'd have to clean it before our Home Teachers came. I am SO thankful for Jason's help. He didn't complain once, not even when I asked him to frost the cookies. He did give me several smart alec comments (biting into a piece of the cookie and saying "Mmmmm, hickory bbq" and "do you have a saw to cut these?" and was unusually hyper, but it kept me laughing. He had a great time with Clara and she took another two hour nap in the afternoon so he got time to get some stuff done then too. I always appreciate his help, but especially when I know he's putting off his homework knowing helping me will relieve some stress. Thanks honey!

It's always funny to me how things seem so catastrophic while they are happening (the nametags, the cookies) and then when it's over with, you realize there are normally no long-term implications from such a situation. I just may never be asked to have responsibilities, but maybe that isn't all bad. Just kidding. ;) Oh, and for those of you that like to notice every mistake in blog posts, this took me long enough to create so I'm not going to re-read it like I normally do, so forgive my typing errors!